Marketing, advertising & media intelligence

Once again, the latest readership and circulation figures didn't make for particularly good reading for any of the major newspaper publishers, but online portals are still a shining light, at least in terms of audience numbers, so Fairfax is aiming to shine more light upon stuff.co.nz with a new campaign via Shine and Open that shows how it gives its audience the full spectrum.

In a release, Fairfax Media marketing director Campbell Mitchell, who took over the role late last year and has overseen a restructure of the marketing department, says the 'Go Full Spectrum' campaign is a reflection of the business’ commitment to putting its audience at the centre of everything it does.

“The Stuff audience is savvy. They want content on the go and they want this content to match their mood and needs, whether that’s being entertained when they have some down time, being kept up to date with the latest news or inspired with fresh lifestyle content. 'Go Full Spectrum' is a strong reflection of our understanding of what our audience needs from Stuff. With a spotlight on the breadth of Stuff’s content and colourful personality, the campaign demonstrates how Stuff delivers—in an intelligent and clever way."

The campaign will roll out over the next four months across print, digital and OOH (billboards, bus wraps and street posters).

Shine won the stuff.co.nz business in 2011 and managing director Simon Curran says the creative demonstrates that the site is uniquely poised to fulfill the desires of its audience.

“The creatively rich strapline, 'Go Full Spectrum', is supported visually by its iconic colour bar. Stuff truly ‘owns’ the spectrum – an instantly recognisable mnemonic for the breadth of the Stuff offering. Stuff represents everything consumers want to know. The executions are topical with an element of intelligence and humour that really embodies the Stuff personality. With news and current affairs naturally being front of mind, the street posters will be updated on a regular basis to keep people entertained and guessing about what will come next."

According to Nielsen, stuff.co.nz averaged 666,763 daily unique browsers in May, compared to 559,785 for nzherald.co.nz.

Stuff took the top spot over the nzherald.co.nz in the Auckland market for the first time late last year and followed it up again in January. And, despite Nielsen's fix of a coding error that saw APN's mobile audience bumped up recently, stuff.co.nz maintains its lead on that front too (in May, 27 percent of the average daily UB traffic to Stuff came from a mobile device).

After claiming top spot in Auckland, Fairfax Media's executive editor Sinead Boucher said: "It’s really important to be number one. And now we’re number one in all markets as well as in all categories, so that’s a great position to be in. But we also look at it in terms of engagement, like how many comments we’re getting and how many shares. And that’s not just from a traffic point of view. It's also to be connected in to what readers are interested in.”

Some believe the quest for audience numbers at all costs is a slippery slope for publishers, with all roads leading to click bait and hot babes on the home page, something Stuff has been regularly accused of (as per usual, The Onion nailed it with this fake opinion piece). But she responded by saying "not a single one of the Stuff editors edits by numbers" and Stuff is "about breaking news and credible journalism", but there’s also room for a bit of light alongside the shade.

“That’s what people are like in real life,” she says. “They might want a bit of entertainment in their lunchbreak.”

And the new campaign, which follows on from the Find Out More work a few years ago, aims to reflect that attitude.

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On Monday, Whittaker’s launched its latest novelty chocolate-lolly mash up with a chocolatey answer to retro bakesale treat coconut ice. The Coconut Ice Surprise chocolate has a twist though, 20c from each block goes to Plunket – a charity which New Zealanders agree is a worthy cause. However, to relate the chocolate to the charity, Whittaker's has built the campaign around baby gender reveal parties, causing a backlash from the public who argue gender norms have expanded beyond blue for boys and pink for girls.

Genius From Elsewhere

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With over 10,000 fires occuring in South Korea residential homes every year, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance has created a flower vase that doubles as a throwable fire extinguisher. The hope is it will raise awareness to the public safety issue of home fire safety.

2

Advertisers have stopped buying ads on YouTube after their ads appeared on children's videos where pedophiles had infiltrated the comment section.The New York Times investigates the comments.

3

The internet has been up in arms about a supposed 'Anti-LGBT' emoji, featuring a rainbow flag alongside the "no" symbol. However, according to Time, the emoji causing offence is actually "an unfortunate implementation of the standards that govern how text is displayed on our device".

4

This year, Super Bowl audiences were treated to a 45-second video of Andy Warhol eating a Burger King Whopper. It was certainly a campaign unlike any before, but did it work? Adweek takes a look.

5

As of 1 March, Queenslanders will be able to include one of five emojis alongside their licence places. The options—the laughing-crying face, the winking face, the sunglasses face, the heart-eyed face, or the classic smiley face—are courtesy of Personalised Plates Queensland.

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